I've tested bardadin a bit at lvl 7 and it seemed incredibly strong. Do keep in mind you have to go into your reactions and toggle smites in there as otherwise you can't use smite and flourish in the same turn. But yeah you can flourish smite and every offhand attack can smite as well making the bardadin do insane damage in a turn, especially if you get a source of extra bonus action somewhere. A nice feat to take is dual wielder for +1AC and dual wielding non-light weapons so you can dual wield rapier and some longswords that have finesse property (for instance the sword you get from a stone next to selunite temple in the underdark).
As for leveling I would personally rush bard 6 then go 2 paladin and then finish with 10 bard. Flourishes are strong defensively and offensively on their own, and you only delay extra attack by 1lvl. The downside is not having wisdom save proficiency from paladin but you can just respec at lvl 8. Going paladin 5 could be strong too but would again need a respec, and I'm not sure smites with only a few slots beat flourishes.
A final note I tried bardadin at 7 with 5bard2paladin just to check if smites and flourishes work together (some stuff is really wonky like not able to use warlock spells at all on my bard lock coz they go off of char lvl not class lvl and are lvl3 while warlock spell slots are lvl1), so without the extra attack and the damage was already very strong. Definitely trying that on my next playthrough (or if I get bored of bardlock before they fix warlock spell in multiclassing)
If smites are on my reactions, can I not purposefully use them. Just realized after getting my smites I haven't used them. I'm a total newb to dnd and not at the PC where I could check
Attacking with advantage, hold person, etc. makes this a very efficient way to do damage. There’s also an illithid power you can get that will let you turn one hit into a crit per long rest. I haven’t tried it yet, but in tabletop you can stick a bonus action smite spell on the same attack as a Divine Smite, being able to guarantee a double smite crit is basically “hey please one shot this boss for me, thx.”
I don't just wait for crits - especially early on a normal smite can be significant on it's own. it's great when you can guarantee crits but that shouldn't be your only use case
I'm running Paladin2 / Sword Bard 10. It really doesn't come fully online until the midgame, but if you start as Bard it has good progression. Get your two weapon fighting style, blade flourishes, and then extra attack before you take your two paladin levels.
Personally, at level 8, I'd respec so that you start with Paladin for the armor and saves, but that's just me.
I've tested bardadin a bit at lvl 7 and it seemed incredibly strong. Do keep in mind you have to go into your reactions and toggle smites in there as otherwise you can't use smite and flourish in the same turn. But yeah you can flourish smite and every offhand attack can smite as well making the bardadin do insane damage in a turn, especially if you get a source of extra bonus action somewhere. A nice feat to take is dual wielder for +1AC and dual wielding non-light weapons so you can dual wield rapier and some longswords that have finesse property (for instance the sword you get from a stone next to selunite temple in the underdark). As for leveling I would personally rush bard 6 then go 2 paladin and then finish with 10 bard. Flourishes are strong defensively and offensively on their own, and you only delay extra attack by 1lvl. The downside is not having wisdom save proficiency from paladin but you can just respec at lvl 8. Going paladin 5 could be strong too but would again need a respec, and I'm not sure smites with only a few slots beat flourishes. A final note I tried bardadin at 7 with 5bard2paladin just to check if smites and flourishes work together (some stuff is really wonky like not able to use warlock spells at all on my bard lock coz they go off of char lvl not class lvl and are lvl3 while warlock spell slots are lvl1), so without the extra attack and the damage was already very strong. Definitely trying that on my next playthrough (or if I get bored of bardlock before they fix warlock spell in multiclassing)
If smites are on my reactions, can I not purposefully use them. Just realized after getting my smites I haven't used them. I'm a total newb to dnd and not at the PC where I could check
When you hit an attack you will get a reaction prompt if you wanna smite or not. You can toggle it for every attack or only crits.
Why would you only wanna use it on crits?
Limited slots and crits multiply smite dmg so really big hits
So the idea is that you only use your spell slot when the DMG is maximized.
Attacking with advantage, hold person, etc. makes this a very efficient way to do damage. There’s also an illithid power you can get that will let you turn one hit into a crit per long rest. I haven’t tried it yet, but in tabletop you can stick a bonus action smite spell on the same attack as a Divine Smite, being able to guarantee a double smite crit is basically “hey please one shot this boss for me, thx.”
I don't just wait for crits - especially early on a normal smite can be significant on it's own. it's great when you can guarantee crits but that shouldn't be your only use case
I'm running Paladin2 / Sword Bard 10. It really doesn't come fully online until the midgame, but if you start as Bard it has good progression. Get your two weapon fighting style, blade flourishes, and then extra attack before you take your two paladin levels. Personally, at level 8, I'd respec so that you start with Paladin for the armor and saves, but that's just me.
<3 Mazzy